Future Bluffton walk-in center inches forward

Sunday

Sep 9, 2012 at 12:13 AM

Sarita Chourey

COLUMBIA - An immediate-care center planned for Bluffton is likely to enjoy a relatively smooth path to completion. It's one that would mark a change from the recent conflicts between health care systems in the region, which frequently challenge their rivals' expansions.

For Georgia Emergency Associates, working with St. Joseph's/Candler to open a 4,700-square-foot walk-in clinic, no certificate of need is required, said SJC spokesman Scott Larson.

The goals of "CON" regulation are to control health care costs, prevent duplicate offerings, and to make sure medical facilities aren't concentrated in wealthy communities while leaving government-assisted residents in a health care desert. Competing health systems frequently jockey for CONs, in order to claim the area's swelling volumes of patients.

The law requires health systems to first win a CON, depending on various circumstances. One case is when a company is building a new health care facility. State permission is also called for when a provider wants to install more than $600,000 in medical equipment or provide patients with a new service that costs more than $1 million to operate annually.

But some facilities, including the proposed Bluffton walk-in, may go up without state permission. On Thursday, Jim Beasley, spokesman for the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, said urgent care centers do not require a certificate of need.

SJC's own challenge of Hilton Head Hospital's proposed $18 million, approximately 60,000-square-foot Bluffton Outpatient Center, which holds a hard-fought CON, has yet to have a hearing before the S.C. Administrative Law Court. The court has about half a dozen contested CONs on tap for various medical projects statewide, according to a recent count.

Meanwhile, the Georgia group is moving forward with the regulatory groundwork to build its Buckwalter Place clinic.

DHEC's Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management has received project details, which officials assess before determining if the work falls within the state Coastal Zone Management Program. And the agency's Bureau of Water is considering the permitting piece that involves land disturbance.

The work, proposed for a site on the northwest corner of Buckwalter Parkway and Progressive Street in Bluffton, includes the usual dirt-moving: grading, placing fill material and putting in sewer utilities and infrastructure to manage storm water. It also covers a retention pool, paving a parking lot and access road, and the facility's construction.

In August, Bluffton Today reported that Georgia Emergency Associates, a group of physicians that owns and operates two immediate care centers in Georgia, was planning to build the walk-in facility in affiliation with Savannah's St. Joseph's/Candler. The facility will provide patients with physicians performing lab work, X-rays, extended hours and industrial medicine. There will also be workers' compensation and occupational medical services.

Nov. 15 is listed as the start date for the construction of the project, and April 15, 2013 is the completion date, according to an application for a pollutant-discharge system permit on file with the state agency.

An Aug. 30 description on file with regulators says the immediate care center will be the fifth of its kind undertaken by developer GEA Statesboro. It will come with 16 parking spots and be situated on 0.7 acres within Buckwalter Place, a 94-acre commercial/residential community. A Bluewater Convenience Center and a McDonald's are also in the works just south of the future medical facility.

Public comments on the site activities proposed for the Bluffton facility must be received by Sept. 17. The address is 1362 McMillan Ave. Suite 400; Charleston, S.C. 29405.

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